When saving the city's single-screen theaters, it helps to have devoted, film-loving philanthropists, who also happen to work as S.F. Giants execs, in the house.

When the Vogue Theatre celebrated its centennial last week, this fun-raising fete featured a star turn by the Giants World Series Championship Trophy, its appearance ensured by Giants Senior V.P. Alfonso Felder and Giants General Counsel Jack Bair. The pair co-founded the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation, which, in 2007, purchased the historic, single-screen Sacramento Street gem.

Now safe from condos, the Vogue is not only one of the nation's first playhouses but is also a modern-day media maven, having beaten mighty Vogue magazine to the Twitter handle@vogue.

The foundation also presents a free Film Night in the Park series. And last year it acquired the lease on the twin-screen Balboa Theatre from longtime owner Gary Meyer, a co-director of the Telluride Film Festival who recently joined the foundation board.

Guests nibbled concession snacks and a live auction of cool goods, led by four dinners with the hardest-working trophy in showbiz, raised $25K for the Vogue's digital equipment and capital improvements.

And the old screen flickered to life with short films starring a history of the Vogue (produced by SFG Productions' Paul Hodgesand Brad Martens) and a haunting series of lost San Francisco landscapes produced by archivist Rick Prelinger.

"Some of these views you'll never see because they're gone forever," Felder said. "And that's why we care about saving San Francisco's neighborhood theaters, so the experiences and landscapes presented here can be enjoyed by future generations."

Joy to the world: If anyone can make it snow at City Hall, it's Protocol Chief Charlotte Shultz, who, with Mayor Ed Lee, presided over a delegation of diplomats last week during their holiday party honoring the San Francisco Consular Corps and Host Committee.

Guests delighted in seeing the majestic Beaux Arts beauty coated in that seasonal stuff. The Rotunda was framed with international flags as the Starlight String Orchestra serenaded revelers mingling with Skyana Entertainment's characters.

McCall Associates served up a multi-culti buffet as showstopping carols were delivered by the costumed cast of "Beach Blanket Babylon."

Playing off the Giants World Series' theme, Shultz praised her City Hall colleagues and the corps as another of the city's great teams.

"Our Consular Corps is the best in the world," she enthused. "Some of you even request to be assigned here."

Among the diplomats: former Secretary of State George Shultz; Cork Sister City Committee co-chairs Diarmuid Philpott and John Moylan; British Consul General Priya Guha; Host Committee members Ron Conway, Genelle Relfe and Gretchen Kimball; Tad Taube, honorary consul for the Republic of Poland; Honorary Consul General to the Ivory Coast Ed Osgood; Honorary Consul General to Monaco Tom Horn; Abidjan Sister City Committee member Frankie Gillette; Commonwealth Club CEO Gloria Duffy; Protocol Director Matthew Goudeau; and SFFD Chief Joanne Hayes-White and her sister, Patricia Hayes, the State Department's foreign missions regional director.

"We are privileged to live and work in San Francisco, the finest city in this great country," toasted Mexico Consul General Carlos Felix, dean of the Consular Corps. "As Sergio Romosaid during the parade, 'The Giants are a great example of the city's rich diversity.' And we consider ourselves part of that vibrant and multicultural family."

Felix also cleared up some current cultural miscalculations.

"People keep asking, 'Did the Mayans really predict the world will end in December'? Don't panic!" he joked. "What the Mayans predicted was the beginning of a new era. So let's work together to make this new era full of hope, peace and prosperity."